You see a figure where you’re standing. An outline in the black. Its presence reverberates against the hairs on your arms. They inch upward from your skin with each flicker of the bulb on its last legs. A step toward the figure brings you closer to the porcelain below the mirror. Your hands spread out like webs along either edge holding your body upright, facing forward. You get your footing as your eyes drift from the rusted drain, past the spout, and up the silver glass until the figure fills your vision. His agency grows deeper but not a single detail can be seen in the void head. Then you feel it pull as its hand raises up and rests just beneath its chin. Your hand raises higher, wrapping your skull as you rest your hand just above your right eyebrow. You watch the figure begin to pull. Gouge. Only a brief moment of shock suspends you before your flesh begins to catch beneath your nails. Then the bulb holds bright. Your hands pull tenaciously as the frame of your skull begins to bend — halo. Your eye widens and widens as the lids get pulled near your hairline. Your eyeball wobbles in it’s socket as your body convulses. Your face, half red, is covering the figure. You can’t see it anymore, blocked by your reflection. And yet, you pull. You pull until your scalp presses warmth against the back of your neck and your cheek hangs beneath your jaw. Your mouth stretches open for the sound to come out, but nothing is ever heard. The stench of hot blood steams up the room. The light flickers out and your body’s wrists are pulled again.
“god help me” you whisper. “please.”
You feel your fingers pressed against the front of the sink, upside down. Then, you feel the smile. Light’s on. Your exposed skull and dripping skin look back at you with a grin that you lack. You watch your eyes roll back into dark spheres with nothing but a white pinpoint of a pupil, staring. You see yourself flash your stained teeth, but you don’t smile. In those whites, you feel his gaze grow within you again. You look down as your arms are forced forward against your hands, your wrists swell out toward the possessor. You look back up as the figure mimics your bulging, wormy veins and broken joints until they rupture. Your wrists shoot the blackest of red fluids onto the mirror as your bones begin to unsheathe from your meat — swords. Light’s off. The liquid death is salty on your gnawed tongue. Your body floods every inch of the floor without cease.
“just kill me. just kill me. just- “
Your hands finally release their grip as they dangle from your forearms like ornaments. Your elbows are raised up and out — scales. Your forehead is pressed against the mirror. The figure presses against your frontal lobe like the softest, icy razors as if your skull could be pressed into slices. Light’s on. Your cracked wrist bones are pressed between your temples as your eyes are locked into the white stare of the figure. Your wrists begin to lurch toward one another, pressing into the skin until it pops beneath the pressure and lets the cracked edge pierce into your brain matter. You watch as your brain’s fluids spurt out from either side slowly, goo. Your eyes are speared into your nose, then pressed together until they mush into pink with strings of red. Just as your skull begins to fall apart, you regain control of your body. You can’t see the mirror anymore. You gurgle the fluids pouring out of arteries and organs as you will yourself to slam your head repeatedly against the smooth, creamy porcelain. You beat and beat and beat and beat but you don’t feel a thing and your soul wants to scream but you can’t hear a thing and all you feel is its presence burning your exposed nerves.
Light’s off.
